Revolution, in whatever context viewed (art, business, industry, invention, music,
politics, religion, science, technology, etc...) is an interesting concept. With
respect to the present "Cenocracy/Cenocratic" (New Government) application, from an
cultural anthropological perspective, it can be described as a cyclical social
ceremony. Sometimes the ceremony is short-lived and dramatic, or long-lived with
"punctuated" moments of decisiveness. Different contexts and time periods yield
different players, wardrobes and may contain long-lasting effects which reverberate
for centuries. Revolutions can be viewed as a type of rite-of-passage, though
one may not think of oneself as a Revolutionist. One may simply view oneself as a
social reformer because the word "Revolution" has too many negative connotations
for them. Far too many think of "Revolution" in the context of Anarchy, destruction
and death... though this need not be the case. Such a situation is usually due to
an opposition that refuses to either reach a compromise or deliberately attempts
to undermine the efforts of those who are seeking (at least perceived) needed
reforms. A dichotomy thus emerges in the minds of some in which Revolution can be
seen as a type of pollution to a presumed "purified" government (be it called a
Communism, Democracy, Socialism or whatever); or viewed as a means of purifying
the pollution of a prevailing inadequate system of government.

Whatever your political orientation may be, you have interest in making changes
that you think are necessary in order to correct one or another perceived social
problem. Different techniques of purification are attempted to remove the perceived
"pollution-in-government". Whereas you may feel a simple change in leadership is
the way to achieve a sociolgical correction, it often merely expresses the practice
of symbolic purification (token guesture) and does not achieve any substantive
actuality. Others think that a new Constitutional Amendment is the best way to
handle the situation... but it too frequently is little more than a symbolic
purification guesture. And still others, like those of us at Cenocracy.org, feel
that a new formula of government is the best approach for not repeating a cycle
of multiple errors from one generation to the next. We are seeking an actual
purification event, and not some simple-minded symbolism which is so ludicrously
deluded it thinks the United States has a democracy. But it should be no surprise
that we find a populace mimicking the same delusion held by many politicians who
try to rationalize their own effectiveness with more of the same distortions of
reality because they have found their niche' of survivability within it.

However, there is now the indication that no matter what government is installed,
it is necessary that it deals comprehensively with the realization that the
destruction of the solar system is and has been underway since it began. Such a
realizing is to acquire a much broader appreciation of what is meant by "pollution",
since the decay of the planetary system is a type of pollution for which the only
way in which humanity can purify itself from, may be to retreat to some other part
of the galaxy, a different galaxy or in some position outside of all galaxies. For example,
the moon is receding from the Earth causing an alteration in the "washing machine"
effects of tides. Another effect is that the fuel of the Sun is being depleted and
there is no visible gas tank for us to refill. In addition, the Sun will expand as
it continues on a course of decay and there is nothing humanity can do about it
with the current state of knowledge. Thirdly, the resources of planet Earth are
being depleted and humanity does not have the understanding needed to either
replenish the resources or utilize those which are being converted to what may be
described as varying forms of feces and being piled high into dung heaps called
city dump sites. Humanity is a primitive (infantile) creature that has not matured
enough in order not to soil itself. Then again, the present state of evolution may
be the cognitive high point of humanity, in a collective... global sense. Far too
often the commercialization of individual cognitive advancements becomes misconstrued
as a collective gain of the species. Just because a monkey can be trained to wear
a suit does not mean it could or would reinvent the suit if it was moved out of sight.
No less, all electronic gains could quickly be lost if a sustained EMP (electro-magnetic
pulse) burst existed... causing a substantial recognition of how little the human
species has really progressed.

While some do not believe that a Revolution is needed because governments are
intentionally structured by those who design laws preventing the people from
implementing a better architecture; others feel Revolution is the only way, while
still others simply want it to be placed as a fixture on the table of discussion
as a possible tool that may be needed when all other avenues of approach have failed.
When it is recognized that a governing practice as that being used by the U.S.
government reflects more ceremonialism in speech and activity (regardless of how
much money and people are involved), like many religious practices involved in
social activities it (and not the congregation) chooses to assist; one must either
be bludgeoned into a state of inebriations by the sheer lunacy of the different
ceremonial pratices, engage in self-administered forms of distraction or
drugged/drunkedness, wither away, or join in some political tug-of-war activism.

Yet, as has been noted time and again throughout history, far too often a citizenry
are confronted by a governing system so very obstinate and arrogant that it believes
itself to be the only means of addressing various social issues within the mental
capacities of its leadership constraints; though it is customary for leadership to
be blind-sided by their egos and refuse to recognize that the government process
they are involved with is inadequate to the task, because it relies on the artistic
duplicity of illusion, deception, and an obliging deferment by the public. Indeed,
the government (as well as business and religion) typically attempt to cover up
it defeciences by using sleight-of-hand substitions like the old usage of spices to
cover up the stence of spoiling meat, or the many modern day representations of
concealment that use varying types of visual, auditory, tactile, gustatory, or
olfactory deoderants. This is why the U.S. government is sometimes viewed as a
back-stabbing double-dealing criminal organization that doesn't like competition
in its self-interest enterprises that it needs to force its will on the public to
see things its way, whether the public likes it or not... because it is solely in
charge of the public's purse strings, and the public has little means to spend their
collectivized money as it sees fit.

For example, the disgusting display of a phony democracy by the United States
government that has the gall to entitle its governing practice as an "American
Democracy", when in actuality, the government is engaged in the various practices
of Oligarchy, Corporatocracy, Plutocratic-Aristocracy, Dictatorial-Monarchialism,
etc... as a means of creating the situation in which it is a moving target.
Necessarily so, the constructive use of violence also is a deliberated topic of
conversation that has been gaining its own respective office of interested
participators. However, what is missing from many discussions is the formula to
be applied before (as a manifested dialogue), during (as an intended, but flexible
goal), and afterwards (as an applicable practicality); once present leadership and
dysfunctional governing design is removed. Yet, some of us don't care whether present
leadership stays or goes. We simply want a new practice of government because the
present one is (perceived to be) so very dysfunctional.

And yes, we are well-aware that there are many vested interests in keeping things
as (terrible) as they are. No less, some people have difficulty with change even if
they are suffering, and/or are unable to visually grasp any better governing design
even if a blue-print is provided to them. Some people have difficulty in visualizing
much of anything beyond their grasp... and a few have difficulty in visualizing
that which is within their immediate reach. Nonetheless, despite the obstacles, we
persevere in our efforts to provide discussions of the topic for developing a
Cenocracy, by using various perspectives from different subject areas. If we permit
ourselves to be limited by discussions framed by those with a vested interest in
maintaining the present formula of government, they will then encapsulate the
information in such a way that provides them with having everyone agree with them,
so as to preserve the present equilibrium of government control over our lives,
though it is promoted in terms which give the impression of freedom and liberty...
again, under their control.

If we look upon Revolution as a process of purification, to free us from the
many types of pollution the prevailing formula of governance establishes and promotes,
then the following article is of value, if only in a metaphorical sense. While some
may Politicians as a type of pollution arising from some long ago mental stench
humanity has not freed itself from, others varyingly perceive Communism, or Democracy,
or Socialism, or Theology, etc., as different forms of pollution that we humans
need to free ourselves from. Similarly, those who like to practice a promiscuous
primate in the jungle type of "freed morality", may eagerly look upon conventional
sexual mores as being too outdated, old-fashioned, restrictive... and otherwise
polluting to the liberation of the "self", though it actually represents an obsession
with the "self" and is but another form of "selfie" preoccupation, just as are some
formulas of Communism, Democracy and Socialism (not to mention business and religion)
are.

Please do not get so caught up in the minutiae of the article's contents that
you forget that it is being presented as a symbolic reference in the context
of being applied to a discussion concerning a political revolution. If you have
difficulty in making the psychic distinction in order to make the cognitive transition
to this type of discursive translation, you will miss the point of the article's
inclusion in the present "Cenocracy" context. Such an approach is far closer to
the application of "science" than Marx and Engles could have ever imagined, since
we could include the topic of "purification" from various other collective perspectives
such as art, biology, chemistry, mathematics, medicine, music, sports, etc., or
individual perspectives such as air, genetics, soil, water, etc..

Whereas we have water purfication methods and waste treatment facilities,
heating/cooling effeciencies, (as well as pathetic forms of human purfication
systems called jails and prisons, but no purification means for correcting a
despicable form of justice system); we do not have a purification system which
enables a nation of people to purify itself of a disgusting business, government
and religious environment (like that existin in the the U.S. and so many others
in the world), except by way of war, pestulance/disease, a destructive weather
phenomena, or revolution. If we leave the purification/cleansing process up to
(presently) standardized (stupidly organized and run) electoral, legislative and
other governing processes; the American people will continue to become so used to
wading, bathing and sleeping in its own filth the world can not but increasingly
come to recognize it as a Nation of stenchly soiled untouchables... supported by
a News media attempting to practice a self-entitled preimment freedom-of-speech
position with a forked-tongue encrusted with the feces of a self-ingratiating
business, government and religious biasness.

The following article does not make the connection between Revolution and a
ceremonial type of Purification Rite. However, as an educational topic of conversation
which adds to the ongoing increase in building up an arsenal of precedents to engage
in what presently appears to be the course of a very bloody Revolutionary movement
to instill a desperately needed new government; one which foreign government entities
have already begun indicating an interest in supporting a Cause on behalf of the
larger Citizenry that has come to be distrustful of business, political, and religious
leadership as well as various News Media sources.... it behooves us to view the topic
of a Cenocracy from different orientations whose language may be otherwise subjectively
oriented but has a decided applicability. Nonetheless, different educational materials
can be conveyed into the drafting of a Cenocratic orientation. And let us restate
this by emphasizing an educational imperative.

It will not be too difficult for some readers to transition between an
anthropological perspective in terms of a developmental New Government philosophy
when the ideas of "Pollution and Purity" are aligned with the present government
processes (as being polluted) and a Cenocratic orientation (as reflecting a greater
purity). Our Cenocratic approach is to create a pervasiveness into multiple subject
areas in order to convey the need for restructuring the educational, policing, religious,
scientific, entertainment, etc., institutions as well. Because many people can see
a need for change in their respective organizations of interest, they also know that
present processes for creating a climate which permits improvements to take place
are themselves part of the obstruction that needs to be overcome. For example, the
structure of the U.S. government is its own obstacle. It can not think "outside the
box" because it necessarily creates an extension of its own boxed structure in any
effort to redefine, restructure, or even reexamine itself. The U.S. government, like
so many governments, (or businesses, or religions), are their own worst enemies.
It is functionally incompetent, as the 2016 U.S. Presidential race has shown... and
uses various elaborations of obfuscated vernaculars to conceal an underlying mental
illness which constructs the illusory reality of a falsified democracy. It is a
cyclical dementia which is increasing and affecting other social layers to practice
and portray a like-minded neurosis that others in different countries can readily
recognize.

The mind of the author of the following article was not directed with a deliberate
attempt to be supportive of a Cenocratic orientation, as the content both clearly
and subtly conveys. In other words, the idea of using the content in the framework
of a developing Cenocratic literature was not the author's original intention. The
correlated connection is due to our interpretation at this web site and should not
be construed to indicate any intent on the author for doing so. Instead of leaving
links within the article which would bring up discussions within the Britannica
media, these have been replaced with a simple "refer to" indication in parenthesis.

Purification Rite

Introduction

Any of the ceremonial acts or customs employed in an attempt to reestablish lost
purity or to create a higher degree of purity in relation to the sacred (the transcendental
realm) or the social and cultural realm. They are found in all known cultures and
religions, both ancient and modern, preliterate and sophisticated, and assume a wide
variety of types and forms.

Concepts of purity and pollution

General concepts

Every culture has an idea, in one form or another, that the inner essence of man
can be either pure or defiled. This idea presupposes a general view of man in which
his active or vitalizing forces, the energies that stimulate and regulate his
optimum individual and social functioning, are distinguished from his body, on the
one hand, and his mental or spiritual faculties, on the other. These energies are
believed to be disturbed or “polluted” by certain contacts or experiences that have
consequences for a person's entire system, including both the physical and the mental
aspects. Furthermore, the natural elements, animals and plants, the supernatural,
and even certain aspects of technology may be viewed as operating on similar energies
of their own; they too may therefore be subject to the disturbing effects of pollution.
Because lost purity can be re-established only by ritual and also because purity is
often a precondition for the performance of rituals of many kinds, Anthropologists
refer to this general field of cultural phenomena as “ritual purity” and “ritual pollution.”

The rituals for re-establishing lost purity, or for creating a higher degree of
purity, take many different forms in the various contemporary and historical cultures
for which information is available. Some purification rituals involve one or two
simple gestures, such as washing the hands or body, changing the clothes, fumigating
the person or object with incense, reciting a prayer or an incantation, anointing
the person or object with some ritually pure substance. Some involve ordeals, including
blood-letting, vomiting, and beating, which have a purgative effect. Some work on
the scapegoat principle, in which the impurities are ritually transferred onto an
animal, or even in some cases (as among the ancient Greeks) onto another human being;
the animal or human scapegoat is then run out of town and/or killed, or at least
killed symbolically. Many purification rites are very complex and incorporate several
different types of purifying actions.

Ritual purity and pollution are matters of general social concern because pollution,
it is believed, may spread from one individual or object to other members of society.
Each culture defines what is pure and impure—and the consequences of purity and
pollution—differently from every other culture, although there is considerable
cross-cultural overlapping on certain beliefs. Cultures also vary greatly in the
extent to which purity and pollution are pervasive concerns: Hinduism, Judaism,
and certain tribal groups such as the Lovedu of South Africa or the Yurok of northern
California in the United States seem highly pollution-conscious, whereas among other
peoples pollution concerns are relatively isolated and occasional. Even within the
so-called pollution-conscious cultures, attitudes toward the cultural regulations
may vary considerably: the Yurok, on the one hand, are said to consider their purification
rituals to be rather a nuisance, albeit necessary for the success of their economic
endeavours; but Hindus, on the other hand, seem to incorporate and embrace more
fully the many regulations and rituals concerning purity prescribed in their belief
and social systems.

Pollution is most commonly transmitted by physical contact or proximity, although
it may also spread by means of kinship ties or co-residence in an area in which
pollution has occurred. Because purity and pollution are inner states (though there
usually are outer or observable symptoms of pollution), the defiled man—or artifact,
temple, or natural phenomenon—may at first show no outward features of his inner
corruption. Eventually, however, the effects of pollution will make themselves
known; the appearance of a symptom or disaster that is culturally defined as a
consequence of pollution, for example, may be the first indication that a defiling
contact has occurred. Common cross-cultural, human symptoms of pollution include:
skin disease, physical deformity, insanity and feeble-mindedness, sterility, and
barrenness. Nature also may become barren as a result of pollution; but, on the
other hand, the natural elements and magical or supernatural forces may run amok
as a result of pollution.

In general, the vital energies of man, nature, or the supernatural, as a consequence
of pollution, may become either hypoactive or hyperactive. The vital energies may
tend to operate in a manner that leads toward decline, loss of potencies and fertility,
and death; they may also, however, tend to operate in an opposite manner that leads
toward excess, increase and perversion of potencies, and chaos. Both of these tendencies
presumably contrast with the tendencies of a state of purity, although the properties,
symptoms, or consequences of purity rarely are explicitly defined in cultural ideologies,
in contrast to the wealth of detail elaborated on the consequences of pollution.

On the whole, purity seems to be equated with whatever a culture considers to
be the most advantageous mode of being and functioning for achieving the paramount
ideals of that culture. Thus, throughout most Asian religions (e.g., Hinduism, Buddhism,
Jainism, and Taoism), purity is equated with calmness (physical, mental, and emotional
equilibrium) in keeping with the ideal goal—at least for religious adepts—of achieving
spiritual transcendence or liberation. In contrast to such Asian religions, groups
whose dominant cultural orientation is pragmatic and this-worldly, such as the Yurok,
often equate the state of purity with vigour and quickness of mind and body.

Purity and pollution in relation to religious concepts

Concepts of purity and pollution may tend to merge with several concepts of religion:
the sacred, sin, and the forces of evil.

Pollution and the sacred

The consequences of contact with both the sacred (the transcendent realm and
objects infused with transcendent qualities) and the polluted may be identical,
although the reasons for the consequences in the two cases are quite different.
The dangers of contact with the sacred may arise from the belief that the gods are
offended by pollution; they will punish a person who defiles a sacred precinct or
object (for example, in Buddhism and many other religions, a menstruating woman who
enters a temple or shrine). The gods may even punish an entire village or tribe for
such an offense. To come into contact with the sacred is also viewed as dangerous
because the sacred is highly powerful or “charged” with energy; thus, one must be
properly strengthened (usually by purification) for the encounter. If one is not
thus strengthened, he will be overwhelmed. Although contact with the sacred may
have negative consequences for a person, this is not because the sacred is polluting.
On the other hand, the dangers of encounter with a polluted person (e.g., an
“untouchable” in India) or object (e.g., feces, in most cultures) arise directly
from the pollution that passes from that person or object to oneself.

Pollution and sin

Purity and pollution beliefs may become incorporated into a religious morality
system in which pollution becomes a type of sin and an offense against God or the
moral order, and purity becomes a moral or spiritual virtue. Thus, for example, in
the Old Testament, the pollution of birth must not only be cleansed by symbolic or
ritual gestures; it must also be atoned for as a cultic sin that offends the sacred
precincts of the Lord. In general, the more universalistic religions—Christianity,
Buddhism, and Islãm—seem to de-emphasize true pollution concerns, and to subsume
them within their frameworks of moral and religious beliefs. Both the Qur'ãn of
Islãm and the New Testament of Christianity show a sharp decrease in rules of specific
pollution avoidances (e.g., fewer food prohibitions) compared to the Old Testament.
Similarly, the sacred texts of Buddhism stress the unimportance of specific avoidances
and rituals (in implicit contrast to the multiple and detailed purity regulations
of Hinduism) and the necessity for cultivating one's spiritual and moral development
instead.

Pollution and the forces of evil

Ideas of pollution are often closely associated with beliefs in demons, sorcerers,
and witches. All of the latter may be viewed, in part, as personifications of the
powers of pollution. People in polluted states are believed to be dangerous not
only to others because they may spread their pollution, but they themselves are
often thought to be in danger of attack by demons, who are attracted by the defiled
person's impurities (refer to angel and demon).

Categories and theories of pollution and impurity

Categories of pollution and impurity

Four major categories of what various religions and societies have regarded as
polluting or inherently impure phenomena may be distinguished. Virtually any type
of impure person, object, or state (as defined in various cultures) may be assigned
to one of these four categories, or may be shown to have symbolic associations with
one (or sometimes with several) of these four sets.

Physiological processes

The functions of the human body are, for the most part, universally considered
polluting, although all functions are not considered polluting in all cultures. The
intensity with which the various processes are abhorred also varies from culture to
culture. The list of polluting organic processes and things includes menstruation,
sexual intercourse, birth, illness, death, and all bodily excretions and exuviae
(urine, feces, saliva, sweat, vomit, blood, menstrual blood, semen, nasal and oral
mucous, and hair and nail cuttings). Associated with this category symbolically may
be various persons, animals, natural objects, sense-related objects, and professions:
women in general (because they menstruate), pregnant women, prostitutes, and widows
(the latter because of their additional association with death); pigs, dogs, and
other scavengers because they eat or associate with excrement and garbage;
carrion-eating animals because of their association with death; leftover food, because
it has come in contact with saliva via the fingers or utensils that have touched
the mouth, or because it may visually resemble vomit or the undigested contents
of the stomach; pungent vegetables or spices (such as garlic, onions, and leeks)
and strong-smelling meats or fish because they cause foul breath odours; food in
general because of its ultimate state as excrement; certain professions because
their members are required to handle corpses or bodily exuviae; and things associated
with lowness—the entire body below the navel, the feet, the hem of the garment, the
floor or ground—because most bodily excretions derive from the lower part of the body.

Violence and associated processes

A second major category of polluting phenomena involves violence and all associated
aspects. This entire category may be reduced to beliefs in the polluting nature of
blood and death, but the extensive development of various ideas connected with
violence pollution merit its being classified as a separate category. Violence
pollution involves a wide variety of activities: murder, hunting, warfare, physical
fights, quarreling, cursing or speech that is considered foul, aggressive language,
lying, and various aggressive human passions (e.g., greed, anger, and hatred). Various
phenomena considered polluting in one culture or another may be placed in this category
because of their symbolic associations with violence: Satan, demons, witches, predatory
ghosts, and the practice of black magic; alcohol because it stimulates aggressive
impulses; carnivorous, predatory, and aggressive animals; meat because of the act
of slaughtering the animal; certain professions because their members manufacture
weapons or kill or fight for a living.

Anomalies

The third major category includes strange, unusual, or unclassifiable phenomena:

Persons not considered fully in control of their faculties (e.g., children,
drunken persons, the insane, or the mentally or physically handicapped, such as cretins)

Perversions of social relationships, especially sexual, that a culture generally
considers to be normal (e.g., adultery, homosexuality, bestiality, incest, births
of children to unwed parents or as a result of adulterous relationships, or the breaking
of vows of celibacy by monks or nuns).

That pollution results from a confusion of classification rules may explain beliefs
that certain objects must not be mixed lest pollution result. The Old Testament
prohibition (also found in certain African groups) that meat and milk should not
be mixed with one another or the prohibition in the Vedas (ancient Hindu scriptures)
against carrying water and fire at the same time are examples of attempts to maintain
classificatory purification rules (refer also to dietary laws).

Social classifications: classes and castes

The belief that the lower castes pollute the upper castes has been explicit in
India, where a true caste system has existed. These lower castes, to some extent,
are considered polluting because they engage in professions that have been or are
associated with the physiological processes or with violence. Many lower caste
occupations (e.g., pottery making or basket weaving), however, do not have such
associations, and thus the categorization of pollution attached to all lower castes
cannot be so explained. Outside true caste systems, there are de facto systems of
racial or ethnic hierarchy, in which certain races or ethnic groups are considered
to be inherently lower than others. In most such systems, the notion that the lower
groups pollute the higher is not stated explicitly in terms of pollution; the
language of racial or ethnic prejudices in such systems, however, is often strongly
reminiscent of pollution concepts—e.g., that the lower groups are “dirty,” have
peculiar bodily odours, engage in sexual promiscuity or perversions, are “animals,”
or are violent and dangerous. Relations between the dominant race or ethnic group
and the subordinate one often resemble the relations between upper and lower castes
in India. In such social systems, eating together and inter-marriage generally are
not condoned, and segregated neighbourhoods and public facilities to maintain minimal
physical contact are encouraged by law or custom.

Types of purification rites

Though these four major categories indicate the great diversity of phenomena
considered polluting cross-culturally, no one culture considers every item noted
in these categories as polluting. Furthermore, within a single culture, not every
item considered polluting is necessarily polluting to every member of the society,
because the connotation of pollution often is dependent upon the occasion and on
the status of a person. The pollution of death, for example, may be confined to
those who have actual contact with the corpse, the immediate family of the deceased,
certain categories of kinsmen, or all members of the village in which the death has
occurred.

The rules dictating avoidance of certain groups or individuals because of the
threat of pollution may be seen as means that a society has at its disposal for
emphasizing its important social categories. Thus, in the case of death, if relatives
on the father's side but not on the mother's side are considered polluted by the
death, it may be theorized that this is one of the society's ways of emphasizing
the greater social significance of the patrilateral relatives in the kinship system.
Sociologists and Anthropologists, on the one hand, tend to stress such social
implications of pollution rules. On the other hand, some Psychologists, Philosophers,
and Theologians are more interested in explaining what there is about polluting
events and processes (e.g., death and menstruation) in themselves that would result
in their being considered polluting in so many cultures.

Two general theories have been proposed in relation to these emphases or questions.
The first theory derives primarily from psychoanalytic theories developed by Sigmund
Freud in which the quest for sexual, excretory, and aggressive pleasures are viewed
as instinctual drives in man that are repressed or greatly limited in the socialization
of the individual. Hence, because many of the phenomena viewed as polluting cross-culturally
are related to these concerns, pollution fears are interpreted as projections or
symbolizations of these repressed instincts. The second theory that attempts to explain
the specific content of pollution—belief systems (as opposed to the social effects
of those beliefs) maintains that, in a very broad sense, things are considered
polluting by virtue of their relationship to cultural classification. This theory
holds that everything considered polluting in any culture either is anomalous in
relation to basic cultural categories or is positioned at the extremities—i.e., the
margins—of major conditions or situations of individual or social existence. Birth
and death, for example, are at the margins of an individual's life, and the lower
castes are at the margin of society.

Both of these theories, however, contain certain problems that may be resolved
by subsuming them under a more general theory. The theory derived from psychological
considerations is regarded by many scholars as being too narrow in scope because
it ignores many types of pollution data; the theory based upon cultural classification,
because it is capable of such broad interpretation, loses its coherence as a theory.
A more general view incorporates these two theories within a single more fundamental
one based on denial. Thus, pollution fears might be interpreted as symbolizations of
any material that is denied full expression—psychologically, culturally, or socially.
The Freudian theory, emphasizing the psychoanalytic notion of repression of instinctual
drives, thus becomes significant in interpreting the first two categories—physiological
processes and aggression (i.e., violent emotional processes). The classification theory,
which emphasizes cultural attempts to ignore or suppress phenomena that do not fit
its cognitive—classification schemes, then becomes significant in interpreting the
third category of polluting things—anomalies, unusual occurrences or types of persons,
and “mixings.” To account for the fourth category, involving the fear of lower castes,
classes, and ethnic groups as polluting, the sociopolitical notion of oppression may
thus be introduced. All these concepts—repression, suppression, and oppression—are
related to the notion of something or someone being forcibly prevented from expression;
that is, of being under some sort of pressure. This idea suggests why polluting things
are viewed as threatening and not simply as interesting peculiarities of the world,
because things under pressure are volatile, liable to escape, or capable of erupting
at any moment.

Theories of pollution and impurity

Occasions and symbolism of purification rites

Purification rites are required whenever there has been some kind of polluting
contact. In addition, cultures may institutionalize regular, periodic purification
rituals on the general principle that pollution occurs all the time. Important
changes of status or quests for special or sacred status may be viewed as progressions
from lesser to greater states of purity, and such changes or quests thus entail
rites that promote the anticipated progressions. Purification is invariably required
before any contact with the sacred. Purification also is generally considered
necessary after any kind of traffic with the demonic forces and black magic, because
these contacts with the nether realm are viewed as polluting experiences. Purification
rites also may be required before undertaking a major endeavour in order to ensure
the participant's success and a right relationship with the special powers involved
in the project.

Though every culture has rituals to rectify unavoidable pollution, prescriptions
of avoidance, abstention, separation, and seclusion are utilized to minimize contacts
with polluting persons, objects, or places. Seclusion devices, which confine the
very pure or the very polluted within an enclosed area away from other members of
society, include menstrual huts, nuptial huts, and birth huts. Initiates are generally
confined to special houses or isolated from the community by living for certain
required periods of time in the bush or forest. Priests often withdraw to the inner
rooms of temples to prepare for or to participate in contacts with the sacred; monks
and nuns confine themselves or are confined to monasteries in order to remain undefiled
by the world, among other reasons. Seclusion or containment may also be symbolically
effected by the use of veils or by the drawing of circles or other enclosures around
the object in question. Under the general heading of segregation, groups of different
grades of purity may retire to their respective parts of a town when their periods
of contact with other members of their community are completed for the day. Men may
have special houses for their esoteric activities from which women are excluded.
Impure persons may be required to cook over a separate fire; persons of different
grades of purity often are not permitted to eat together, to sleep under the same
roof or in the same room, and, almost universally, to marry or have sexual relations
with one another. Finally, complete abstention, for a fixed period of time, from
such polluting activities as sex, eating, and other sensuous indulgences is a
significant aspect of purification processes in many societies around the world.

Classification of purification rites

Various kinds of avoidances and abstentions represent the passive aspect of purification.
The active aspect consists of the purification rites themselves. Such rites may be
classified according to the principle on which they operate.

The removal of pollution

Based on the analogy of cleansing outer dirt or stains by means of bathing or
washing in everyday life, purification of man's inner state of being is almost
universally believed to be effected by rituals involving various forms of washing.
The polluted individual might be required to swim or bathe in the sea, a river, a
pond, or special tank. Bathing in swift-flowing streams is often considered especially
effective because the rapidly flowing water not only removes the impurities but
carries them away. A polluted person might wash his entire body with water or only
certain parts of the body that represent the body or person as a whole—rinsing or
cleaning the mouth by other means is common. Water may be poured, sprinkled, thrown,
or blown upon a polluted person or object. Simply touching water is a purifying
gesture in the Vedas; gazing at it is considered purificatory in Sri Lanka (Ceylon).
In the absence of water various kinds of moist substances may be used—clay, mud,
wet herbs, or plants. The Qur'ãn (the Islãmic sacred scriptures) directs
desert dwellers and travelers to rub themselves with high clean soil because of the
scarcity of water. In cultures in which saliva is not considered polluting,
expectorating or breathing on something may be viewed as purificatory gestures.

Other modes of purification based on the analogy of cleansing outer dirt include:
the use of wind or aeration to blow or carry away the impurities; sweeping a house
or certain area of the ground or brushing the polluted person or object, often with
a brush made of fibres from a symbolically pure source; scraping the surface of a
polluted object or utensil; shaving and cutting the hair and nails; removing clothing
and washing it or destroying it; and putting on clean or new clothes.

The expulsion of pollution

Based on the analogy of expelling internal physical poisoning or corruption,
a second category of purification rites involves the actions of expelling, ejecting,
purging, or drawing out the pollution from the defiled person or object. The use
of purgatives in purification rites to induce vomiting is not uncommon. Sweat baths
and steam baths are believed to bring the impurities out of the person as symbolized
by the emerging sweat. Some purification rites involve blood-letting in order to
drain out impurities. The use of salt in some rites may be based on the fact that
salt has drawing or draining properties. In corporate acts of expelling pollution,
an entire community may purge itself of a polluted individual in its midst by
excommunicating him and forcing him to leave the religious group, caste, tribe, or
area.

The transfer of pollution

Closely connected with the practice of drawing pollution from the defiled person
or object is the notion that pollution may be transferred from a person or community
to another object that is either immune to pollution itself or that can be discarded
or destroyed. The most dramatic rites embodying this principle are scapegoat ceremonies
in which pollution is transferred to an animal or person by either touching, bathing
with, or simply pronouncing the pollution transferred to the scapegoat. The scapegoat
is then run out of town or killed, actually or symbolically. The victim may further
be made into an offering or sacrifice to the gods on the general ritual principle
of keeping the gods satisfied. In the classic scapegoat ceremony of the Old Testament,
as noted in Leviticus, chapter 16, the animal—called Azazel (a desert demon)—was
simply released to wander the wilderness; in Bali (in Indonesia) birds act as scapegoats
and are then released to fly away.

Less dramatically, pollution may be transferred to a relatively worthless talisman
(charm). Some talismans are regarded as convenient because they are disposable and
of little value; after they have served their purposes in specific situations they
are thrown away. In Bali a three-month-old child is purified by transferring his
impurities to a chicken; this chicken may then become his pet and continue to absorb
the pollutions to which the child is exposed. It may never be killed or eaten, and
when it dies it is buried with respect.

The destruction of pollution

Pollution is also believed to be eliminated by destroying the polluted object.
The killing of the scapegoat belongs to this general category; more dramatically,
a severely polluted person may himself be killed rather than being allowed the
opportunity to transfer his impurities onto a more dispensable animal or object.
The execution of a polluted person or a scapegoat animal often takes the form of
drowning, choking, suffocating, or clubbing so that the pollution might not escape
with a flow of blood. Polluted metal objects may be melted down; polluted fires are
extinguished; polluted clothing, utensils, and other items are torn, broken, and
often buried.

The most common means of destroying pollution is by burning the polluted objects.
Fire is a most efficient destroyer; when the flame no longer exists there is virtually
nothing left of the objects. Fire is generally conceived, however, as having more
positive purifying properties, not only destroying pollution but creating purity.

The transformation of pollution into purity

Fire is perhaps one of the most symbolically complex phenomena in the history
of human culture. It renders raw meats and vegetables into cooked and edible food,
base minerals into useful and durable metals, and porous dirt and clay into
watertight pottery. It destroys the forests and brushlands, but its ashes make the
earth fertile and productive. Fire is thus viewed as a powerful transformer of the
negative to the positive. Because of such properties, fire is commonly found in
purification rites throughout the world. Polluted persons may be required to walk
around, jump over, or jump through fire. Polluted items may be singed, fumigated,
or smoked. The widespread use of incense smoke in purification rites is based on
the transforming powers of fire, as well as on the additional purificatory powers
of sweet smells. Polluted persons or things may be rubbed with ashes or soot, and
polluted objects may be boiled, subject to the double purificatory powers of fire
and water. Exposure to sun and to intense heat are also regarded as practices falling
into this same general category. The extinguishing of old fires in temples and
villages and the kindling of new ones are common practices after a death or as part
of annual renewal and purification ceremonies. Alchemic experiments, which attempt
to purify mineral substances and turn them into gold, involve boiling or melting
down the solution or elements over pure and intense heat and then recrystallizing
them in newer and higher forms (see also alchemy; Taoism).

The introduction of purity

In addition to the cleansing, purging, destruction, and transformation of pollution,
most purification rites involve the positive introduction of purity. Many phenomena
are considered inherently pure; ingestion of, or contact with, or simply exposure
to such phenomena is believed to bring purity to the object of the ritual.

Objects, activities, or persons commonly considered to have intrinsic purity
cross-culturally include: fire; water; sweet smells created by flowers, fragrant
plants and herbs, perfumes, fragrant oils, or incense; milk, ghee, and other dairy
products; white objects; earth in its natural form; sacred objects (e.g., relics)
and sacred personages (e.g., priests); the recitation of spells, incantations, and
names of gods; magical amulets and stones; gold and, in one culture or another,
silver, bronze, jade, and crystal; virgins; the right as opposed to the left side
of things in many cultures (e.g., the Abaluyia of Kenya); morning, sunshine, and
daylight as opposed to darkness; whole or perfect objects, including circles and
wheels and perfect numbers—e.g., the number nine (because the digits of any of its
square products always add up to nine) or four (because quaternity is viewed as
perfection); and physically perfect specimens of their species. In addition, cultures
idiosyncratically define certain things as pure because of special cultural associations:
cow dung and cow urine are pure in Hinduism because of the sacredness of the cow;
dogs are considered to be pure in Zoroastrianism (a religion founded in the 6th
century BC by the Iranian prophet Zoroaster) because as scavengers they purify the
world for everyone else (most cultures view dogs as impure because of their scavenging
habits); and all cool things are considered pure among the Lovedu of South Africa
because pollution is associated with heat.

Other purification rites

Purification practices in which pollution is introduced qua pollution in order
to achieve purity are also found in various religions and cultures. These rather
paradoxical practices work on several different principles. The use of garlic,
sulfur, or an amulet made of impure materials apparently operates on the principle
of like attracting like; the impure amulet draws the impurity encountered in some
situation toward itself, thus preventing it from polluting the wearer of the charm.
Another set of practices apparently works on an inoculation principle—a baby, a
magical implement, or a special work area may be briefly exposed to menstrual blood,
for example, to protect it against future pollution from the same kind of item. A
third group of such paradoxical practices, found primarily in Asian religions, involves
immersing oneself in what is viewed as utter pollution, either by meditating on foul
things or by actually keeping oneself permanently unclean, in order to achieve
transcendence over pollution. Ordeals, mutilations, and blood rituals in general
may also be regarded as fitting the transcendence pattern.

In highly developed and elaborated systems of thought, purity and pollution meet
and merge. Buddhist monks are considered to be extremely pure, yet they are directed
to make their robes from cemetery cloths, and beds or litters used in funerals may
be donated to their monasteries. Buddhist relics with great purifying power are
often composed of bits of hair, nails, and bones (albeit of the Buddha or other
great saints); in Sri Lanka the word (dhãtu) for such relics is the same as the
word for semen. Monks and nuns of Jainism (an Indian religion founded by Mahavira
in the 6th century BC) are ordered not to bathe and under no circumstances to clean
their teeth. In Hinduism, if a Brahmin (a member of the highest caste) enters a
street of the untouchables (outcastes), he is polluted, but the whole street also
falls prey to disease, famine, and sterility. In a Burmese folktale, an alchemist
became discouraged with his experiments and threw his alchemic stone into a latrine
pit; on contact with the excrement, the stone achieved purity—thus indicating that
contacts with pollution may bring about purity.

Many rituals considered to effect purification do not utilize any of the specific
purifying techniques outlined above. They simply make use of techniques believed
to have generalized ritual efficacy, no matter what the disorder. Thus, some
purification rites involve reversals, especially reversals of roles between men
and women, on the general principle that they represent a return to chaos and then
a change back to order. Another widely practiced ritual principle involving the
symbolism of reversal is that of death and rebirth; man and the world, with all
their disorders, are symbolically put to death and then symbolically renewed in
a purer and better state. Because blood is associated with both life and death,
the use of blood in purification rites is often central to the symbolic renewal
process. Nearly all rituals involve the reading or reciting of spells, texts, or
prayers that have a generalized efficacy over negative forces, and in many cases
purification may be accomplished by these means without any further symbolization
of cleansing or a re-creation of purity. When pollution becomes one of many possible
offenses against the gods, purification may be accomplished simply by making sacrifices
or offerings to the gods. Pollution often becomes identified with immoral or sinful
behaviour and in such instances purification may be effected by punishment of the
offender, by the offender's spiritual atonement, or by acts of penance and virtue,
such as giving alms. Purity also may become identified with the struggle against
the demonic forces, and in this transcendent dimension purification is effected in
rites of exorcism or in rites that placate the demons. The use of weapons in
purification rites is often based on a symbolic battle with the forces of evil;
the use of firecrackers in some purification rites is viewed as a means of frightening
away the demons; the use of curses, abuse, ridicule, and ribaldry in purification
rites among the ancient Greeks, for example, was regarded as forms of protection
against the demons. Some purification rites involving blood are structured in terms
of giving demons what they want in order to turn away their polluting presences
(refer to sacrifice).

Examples of purification rites

Most full-scale purification rites combine several of the principles outlined
above. A few of the immense number of complex purification rites in the religions
and cultures of the world follow.

Rite for purifying a cured leper in ancient Judaism

In the Old Testament purification rites for a person who has been cured of leprosy,
as described in Leviticus, the leper and the priest meet outside the camp, and the
priest examines the man to ascertain that he is cured. The priest then calls for
two live, clean birds, cedar wood, a scarlet item, and hyssop (an aromatic herb).
One of the birds is killed in an earthen vessel over running water. The live bird
and the other ingredients are then dipped in the blood of the dead bird and used
to sprinkle blood seven times upon the leper while the priest pronounces him clean.
The live bird is then allowed to fly away. The leper washes his clothes, shaves
off all his hair, and washes himself, after which he is allowed to enter the camp,
although he must remain outdoors for seven days. On the seventh day he once again
shaves off his hair, including his eyebrows, and washes his clothes and body. On
the eighth day he goes to the temple to make various offerings to the Lord. The
priest then takes some of the blood of one of the offerings and places it on the
man's right ear, thumb, and large toe of the right foot, after which he does the
same with some oil that is being offered, also pouring some oil on the man's head.
The sacrifices are then offered to the Lord upon the altar, thus completing the
required ritual: “the priest shall make atonement for him, and he shall be clean.”

The Navajo sweat-emetic rite

The Navajo sweat-emetic rite is part of most major Navajo ceremonials for curing
illness or rectifying other ritual disturbances. It is specifically viewed as a
rite of purification.

A ritual hut is prepared with sand paintings, and a fire is then built. A procession
of patients, led by the chanter, enters the hut and circumambulates the fire, pausing
at each of the four directions to sing an appropriate chant. In some cases there is
fire jumping; the men are required to jump over the fire, and the women to walk as
close to it as possible. The audience then enters, with men and women sitting in
segregated groups. The chanter heats wooden pokers in the fire and applies them to
himself, mainly on the legs, and then to all the patients. Basins in front of each
patient are filled with the emetic formula, the fire procession is repeated, and
the emetic is then drunk. Everyone is expected to vomit; if they do not, it is
regarded as inauspicious. Vomiting is done into receptacles containing sand, and
the contents of these receptacles may then be sprinkled with ashes from the pokers.
A bullroarer (a heavy stone on a string that produces a deep roaring sound when
whirled) is sounded outside six times and then brought in and applied to the patients.
The audience leaves the hogan (hut) in procession, this time led by assistants who
carry out the basins with their contents. The contents of the basins are deposited
neatly in a row outside the hogan and allowed to be dispersed by the natural elements.
The patients, however, remain inside the hogan, perspiring in the heat. Later, the
audience re-enters; the fire is broken up and extinguished, and all remnants of it
are removed to a place near the basin area. The chanter sprinkles all present with
a medicinal lotion and then fumigates everyone with incense. All then leave in
procession and dress outside.

The Zoroastrian “Great Purification” rite

The “Great Purification” rite (baresnum) of Zoroastrianism originally was intended
for purification from serious polluting contacts, especially for corpse bearers
after contact with death. The rite was later pre-empted for initiation into the
priesthood, or for attaining higher statuses within it.

In preparation for this rite a priest seeks a piece of ground regarded as clean
(i.e., dry and unfrequented by men or animals). He then cuts down any trees located
on the area selected. Nine pits are dug in a certain arrangement; furrows are drawn
around three, then around six, and finally around all nine pits. Thereafter, the
whole area is covered with sand. After these activities have been completed, the
priest stands outside the outer furrow, and the subject requiring purification advances
to the first pit and is told to recite praises to the “Purity of Thought.” The priest,
holding a stick with nine knots and with a spoon fastened to the end, uses the spoon
to pour consecrated cow's urine (gomez) upon the hands of the subject, who washes
his hands with the urine three times. He then washes his entire body with gomez,
progressing from the head down to the feet. The pollution is said to leave the toes
in the form of a foul-smelling fly. After the one seeking purification has washed
himself with gomez, the priest recites purifying formulas. This process is repeated
at each of the first six pits; at a prescribed distance from the seventh pit, the
subject sits down and rubs himself 15 times with sand, making sure that he is completely
dry. At the seventh pit he washes his body once, from head to toe, with water; at
the eighth pit he does this twice and at the ninth pit three times. His body is then
fumigated with the smoke of fragrant wood, after which he dresses in clean clothes.
In certain versions of the ceremony, a dog is presented to the candidate, who, after
each washing at each pit, must touch the left ear of the dog with his left hand. At
the end of the ceremony the candidate is required to recite the following formula:
“The Evil Spirit of pollution is put down. The head and the body have become purified.
The soul has been purified. The dog is holy, the priest is holy.”

The candidate then retires to a house and is required to have no contact with
fire, water, cultivated land, trees, cattle, men, or women. On the fourth, seventh,
and tenth days he again bathes with gomez and then with water. After the final bath
he is considered “perfectly purified.”

(Cenocracy.org note: ["fourth, seventh, tenth" is a pattern-of-three] please refer to the Threesology
Research Journal for information regarding a recurrence of "threes" in cognitive
processing.)

Pollution beliefs in modern society

Pollution beliefs and fears occur in modern society as well as in any other,
although they are not systematized and usually not understood as such. Racism and
other forms of prejudice apparently play upon pollution fears. Of less serious
consequence are such notions that warts result from masturbation (traditionally
considered a polluting or impure practice in conventional Western societies), that
there is something dangerous or polluting in intercourse with menstruating women,
and that (as in a New York state law) men and women should not have their hair cut
or beauty services performed in the same room. Physiological processes (e.g., urination
and other forms of elimination) are often viewed with disgust, and as a result many
modern notions of sanitation are based on not entirely rational principles. The
highly developed mortuary profession (especially in Western countries) protects
persons in contact with death not only from grief but probably from pollution fears
as well. On the whole, however, there are fewer pollution beliefs in modern society
than in traditional societies. This trend may be attributed in part to the assimilation
of these beliefs into moral and religious concepts.

Sherry B. Ortner

Additional Reading

Few works deal directly with purification rites.

Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger (1966), is a major work dealing with the problems
of purity and impurity.

Hutton Webster, Taboo: A Sociological Study (1942); and Franz Steiner, Taboo (1956),
deal with pollution taboos as part of the general field of ritual prohibitions.

In the Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, 10:455–505 (1919, reprinted 1955),
the article “Purification” has many examples.

Religious texts are among the best available sources: the Old Testament; the
Egyptian Book of the Dead; and Friedrich Max Müller (ed.), The Sacred Books of the East,
51 vol. (1879–1904), available in many later editions. The latter includes texts of
Hinduism, Buddhism, Islãm, Zoroastrianism, and Taoism.

For a good summary of Zoroastrian purification rites, see J.J. Modi, The Religious
Ceremonies and Customs of the Parsees (1922, reprinted 1979; 2nd ed., 1937).

(Cenocracy.org note: the last Additional Reading example must be viewed with
some suspicion because it has been reported that when the island girls who were
interviewed by Margaret Mead had learned to read English, they found her comments to
be rather humorous because they had told her what they thought she wanted to hear,
and not what the actual case was. No doubt this may be the situation for other
anthropological research studies as well.)